eing of another
species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.

No international question has become more hackneyed than "Does China
want the foreigner?" Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time
been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men
supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting
with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his
advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general
assent come to be understood that China _does_ want the foreigner. But
those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their
inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still
ask, "Does she?"

To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having
trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff--without whom few
businesses in the Far East can make progress--my argument may seem to
have no _raison d'etre_. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the
absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First,
they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great
nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone
doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for
closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more
than mere superficial dealings with them?

Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large
commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or
out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance
and remarkable business acumen and integrity.

As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of
people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the
Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born
Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese
and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in
their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an
infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior
entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where
Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred
towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one
not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the
brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner